Chilling account of the Middle East crisis

IT began within minutes of leaving the city of Tel Aviv for the south. Overhead the sky pounded with the sound of the Israeli missile.

SIMON BENSON in Ashkelon

DailyTelegraphNovember 19, 201211:34pm

Israeli men inspect the damage caused to a house by a rocket launched by Palestinian militants. Pic: AFPSource:The Daily Telegraph

IT began within minutes of leaving Tel Aviv yesterday for the south. Overhead the sky pounded with the sound of the Israeli missile defence, the Kipat Barzel, or Iron Dome, taking out airborne rockets from Gaza.

A feeling of dread comes with every announcement through the car radio warning of another incoming round.

Even my driver, Yahalom, a local who has lived with rocket fire for the past 12 years, shows signs of unease, looking out the window, one hand on the wheel and the other shielding his eyes from the sun, trying to track the trajectory of the "qassams".

That's the name they give to the rockets - after the military wing of Hamas that send them over the fence.

The further south we drive, the more deserted the roads become, and the less time there is to find cover.

Middle East crisisSource:The Daily Telegraph

Soldiers lie down in ditches to the side of the road, next to civilians who have left their cars to avoid shrapnel blowing them to pieces. The worst place to be is in the car. Petrol tanks and missiles make for bad companions.

We are 18km out of Tel Aviv passing through Ashdod when the latest update comes through that the city has come under attack.

The Kipat Barzel missiles streak through the air in front of us, exploding in the sky in white and grey puffs as they take out their targets. But not all of them.

A house to our west takes a direct hit.

"Oi, oi," says Yahalom, shaking his head.

Then more news comes through that sirens had gone off again in Tel Aviv, a burning piece of shrapnel hits a car outside a hospital we had visited only three days earlier. Hospital staff later tell me it's OK, the elderly man inside had time to escape before it exploded into flames.

Middle East crisisSource:The Daily Telegraph

They also say that only ten minutes earlier, they had brought in a boy from Gaza for an operation. The irony, By the time we reached Sderot, 64km from Tel Aviv, what was a generous minute had turned into a matter of seconds. In some cases less than 10.

The launch site for 73 rockets that had made it through Israeli defences that day, a mix of short range mortars, Grads, the medium range Katyushas and longer range Fajr rockets which can reach Tel Aviv, was only 3km away.

Arriving at the largely deserted streets of Sderot, with Gaza City visible across the border, "Tzeva Adom" rang out though the public broadcast system. "Colour Red, Colour Red".

Middle East crisisSource:The Daily Telegraph

We fast footed it to the reinforced concrete bomb shelter behind Histadrut 1, where a small team of locals at the Sderot Media Centre try to get their message out to the world, to the suppressed thud of a mortar, or a Grad, it was hard to tell, hitting nearby.

The Iron Dome sits on top of a hill just outside of town. Two soldiers man the Israeli designed missile defence system which only five years ago the Government had claimed was not needed.

"I'd hate to think what would happen if we didn't have it," says Beverly Jamil, a volunteer ambulance driver from Ashkelon, 50km south of Tel Aviv, and only 10 minutes drive from the Gaza border.

As she welcomes us into her home, the siren sounds, she rushed her two daughters into the bedroom, which doubles as a safe room, made of reinforced concrete with iron shutters on the window.

Not far from her block, a rocket shears through the roof of a house, injuring three people.

As the day wears on and the rocket count rises, so does the toll of day four of the conflict.

A family driving in a car suffered a direct hit from a Grad rocket, seriously injuring two of he five passengers, further south.

Ashdod takes heavy fire, with homes hit as does Sderot.

Middle East crisisSource:The Daily Telegraph

Across the border in Gaza, the toll is greater as Israeli forces continue to take out what they claim are military targets.

A missile air strike destroys a building which the IDF claimed was home to Hamas rocket launching command. Hamas claimed the strike killed a family of 10.

A spokesperson for the IDF later confirmed that 73 rockets had landed in Israel by the end of the day. Israeli missile defence had taken out a further 38.

It is high, but not as high as three days ago when more than 200 rockets were launched into Israel.

It is in this context that arriving back into Tel Aviv feels safe.

Half an hour later the air raid sirens go off and two rockets come into downtown Tel Aviv.